It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes.It is in fact true. It’s called living.

— Terry Pratchett, "The Last Continent"

Frust

Feb. 14, 2012

FRUST (frust) n: The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.

Secure

This Is for Your Own Good

Esprit

Something Isn’t Right

There is now a two part test to determine whether an act by the [US] government is a “search” (either makes it so):

Is the act a trespass on the property of the suspect? Exception: If the act (for example, attachment of a gps tracker) is done before the item becomes the property of the suspect then it is not a search even after it has become the property of the suspect.

Does the act violate the suspect’s reasonable expectation of privacy? With the trespass rationale coming back to the fore, the role of the reasonable expectation of privacy might become narrower. In most cases the opening of a car trunk or entry into a building is a trespass. Therefore, the reasonable expectation of privacy would apply to something else. The thing which comes to mind is “emanations.” Emanations are those things which escape from a person/property through the air (energy, heat, smell, sound) and do not require the police to actually touch the suspect’s property. Reasonable expectation of privacy requiring a search warrant for emanations tracks with the cases such as sound that emanates out of a phone booth requires a search warrant and energy emanating from a house requires a search warrant. Exceptions: Those emanations which are readily noticeable by another may not require a search warrant. For instance an officer that smells marijuana, or sees stolen property in a car or hears someone in a house yelling “Rape!” would not have to go get a search warrant. Emanations (scents) which are alerted to by a dog also do not require a search warrant.

Some US domestic police forces are now equipped with spy drones. One drone manufacturer plans to sell 18,000 drones to police departments throughout the country; it advertises a small drone, the “Switchblade,” which can track and land on a person, then explode. State and local police are being “federalised” to an extent. It is not only military armaments and spy technology that local police are receiving from Washington, but also an attitude toward the public and the federal oversight and collaboration that goes with that. When Homeland Security, a federal police force, comes into states (such as has happened in Georgia and Tennessee) and works with state police to stop cars and trucks on Interstate highways, subjecting vehicles to baseless searches, then state police become de facto deputies of Homeland Security. Homeland Security;s reach goes far beyond airline security and includes highways, bus and train stations, and even Social Security offices. In January, the Social Security office in Leesburg, Florida, apparently a terrorist hotspot, became a Homeland Security checkpoint complete with automatic weapons and sniffer dogs. The district manager for the Social Security Administration office said staff were not informed beforehand. I presume they were looking for illegal immigrants, but I’m unsure what the sniffer dogs were used for. The federal police, a new entity in American life, has authority over state and local police offices and can appear out of the blue to interrogate local citizens. America, get used to it. (okay, the middle poster above may be a bit extreme. Consider it a reminder not to drift in that direction. Like these guys may have done.)

Propranolol (also known as Inderal) is a beta blocker drug that was invented in 1964 by James W Black for heart attacks and high blood pressure. Beta blockers block the action of endogenous catecholamines — epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) in particular — on β-adrenergic receptors, part of the sympathetic nervous system which mediates the “fight or flight” response. Propranolol helps in the relief of headaches and migraines (and also, oddly, shrinks hemangiomas in babies and young children); it blocks the action of stress hormones that etch memories in the brain. This means that its use causes the dampening of the memory of being under stress. This effect is associated with 5 specific problems:

It may prevent the user from truly coming to terms with trauma.

It may tamper with identity, leading to a false sense of happiness while remaining in a potentially bad situation.

It may demean the genuineness of human life and experience.

It may encourage forgetting memories that one may be obligated to keep (for example, that fire burns and that drunk driving kills).

It may inure the user to the pain of others.

The use of propranolol is a complex issue. Learning from the past plays a huge role in the person that one becomes. People learn from mistakes in the process of growing and developing. Propranolol can make traumatic memories “more abstract and less painful” and brings into question the significance of reality. Its common use might lead to a basic shift in remembering and forgetting, allowing us someday to change the very character of what we do and don’t recall. How to Build the Perfect Soldier (video). More.

The Atlanta Jewish Times published a column 13 January saying that one of three options Israel should consider on the day the Prime Minister hears that Iran has a nuclear weapon is for Mossad agents in the US to assassinate Barack Obama. “Yes, you read option three correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?” The person responsible stepped down from his post shortly afterward. Jewish organisations were appalled and had quickly condemned the writer and his paper. The Secret Service began an investigation. Earlier in January, Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal had forwarded an email to House Republicans that referred to President Obama and a bible verse that says, “Let his days be few and let another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour. May no one extend kindness or take pity on his fatherless children.” O’Neal forwarded the prayer with his own message: “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!” O’Neal’s office refuses to apologise. These incidences display an attitude toward the current president that is worrying and it is one which should absolutely be avoided. Keep your activism civilised, please.

Anyone who’s been on a wild goose chase can sympathise with a junior Sussex, UK police officer who “chased himself” for 20 minutes at a CCTV operator’s behest. The officer, dressed in plainclothes, had been patrolling an unnamed market area that had recently been hit by a series of burglaries. While the officer was searching the area for suspects, a closed-circuit television operator radioed that she saw someone “acting suspiciously” in the area, unaware that she was in fact looking at the very person she was talking to on the radio. The officer continued to unknowingly chase his own shadow for a full 20 minutes, as the operator gave instructions, saying he was “hot on his heels.” At this point, the officer’s sergeant walked into the CCTV room, saw what was going on and, once he stopped laughing, put an end to the chase.

Oily

Petrobras

Keystone Route

Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — below a mile of water and two miles of shifting rock, sand and salt — is an ultradeep sea of oil that could turn Brazil into the world’s 4th-largest oil producer, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the US. The country’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, expects to pump 4.9 million barrels a day from the country’s oil fields by 2020, with 40% of that coming from the seabed. One and a half million barrels will be bound for export markets. The US wants it, but China is getting it. With the Lula and Carioca discoveries alone, Brazil added a possible 38 billion barrels of estimated recoverable oil. Brazil’s Petrobras signed a technology cooperation deal with the China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec. Petrobras also signed a memorandum of understanding with Sinochem, a massive state-owned company with interests in energy, real estate and agrichemicals. The Sinochem deal aims to identify and build “business opportunities in the fields of exploration and production, oil commercialisation and mature oil-field recovery,” according to Petrobras. China rescued Petrobras in 2009, when the oil company was looking at tight credit markets to finance a record-setting $224 billion investment plan. China’s national development bank offered a $10 billion loan on the condition that Petrobras ship oil to China for 10 years. Money is power.

President Barack Obama’s decision to reject a permit for TransCanada Corporation’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports. Canada’s Natural Resource Minister said relying less on the US would strengthen Canada’s financial security. (Currently, 99% of Canada’s crude exports go to the US.) Canada accounts for more than 90% of all proven reserves outside OPEC according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Obama said the rejection wasn’t based on the project’s merit and Canada was free to reapply for a permit after it develops an alternate route around the Nebraska Sandhills, a sensitive habitat. TransCanada said the 1,661-mile (2,673-kilometre) project would carry 700,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the US Gulf coast, crossing 6 states and creating 20,000 person-years of work in construction and supply. According to an editorial in the Washington Post, “Obama is so obsessed with his reelection that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.” Is that true? Stopping the pipeline won’t stop the development of the tar sands. Environmental groups have lobbied against the project, arguing that the extraction of oil sands — a process more akin to strip-mining than drilling — is so energy-intensive that it contributes to climate change. They also assert that the pipeline could leak, possibly endangering the giant Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking and irrigation water to much of the Great Plains.

During the Super Bowl, a representative of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly posted on their corporate blog that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.3 billion — a price said to “buy 371 Super Bowl ads, 16 million official NFL footballs, two pro football stadiums, pay almost all NFL football players, or buy every seat in every NFL stadium for 6 weeks”. This is, of course, ludicrous. The average drug developed by a major pharmaceutical company costs at least $4 billion, and it can be as much as $11 billion. This is scary because it’s unsustainable. Inventing new medicines is so expensive an endeavour as to ultimately approach futility. A single clinical trial can cost $100 million at the high end, and the combined cost of manufacturing and clinical testing for some drugs has added up to $1 billion. But the main expense is failure. Right now, fewer than 1 in 10 medicines that start being tested in human clinical trials succeed. It is hoped that new technologies and a better understanding of biology will turn things around.

In 30 years there has been a 20-fold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder. Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement/peer relationships nor reduce behaviour problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth. There are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see. Stimulants generally have the same effects for all children and adults. They enhance the ability to concentrate, especially on tasks that are not inherently interesting or when one is fatigued or bored, but they don’t improve learning abilities. The effects fade after prolonged use. Many parents who take their children off the drugs find behaviour worsens, often confirming their belief that the drugs work. But behaviour worsens because children’s bodies have become adapted to the drug. Adults have similar reactions if they suddenly cut back on coffee, or stop smoking. This treatment’s successes fade over time.

Everybody’s Talking

Botannical Chatter

Talk to Me Instead

One cabbage plant had a leaf cut off with scissors and started emitting a gas – methyl jasmonate – thereby “telling” its neighbours there may be trouble ahead. Two nearby cabbage plants, which had not been touched, received the message they should protect themselves. This they did by producing toxic chemicals on their leaves to fend off predators such as caterpillars. For the first time, such a process was caught on camera. Scientists say it raises the possibility that plants are all communicating with each other in a complex “invisible language”. There could be a constant chatter going on between different plants, as they in some way sense chemically what is happening to others around them.

The tip of a girl’s 40,000-year-old pinky finger found in a cold Siberian cave, paired with faster and cheaper genetic sequencing technology, is helping scientists draw a surprisingly complex new picture of human origins. Modern humans encountered and bred with at least two groups of ancient humans in relatively recent times: the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia, dying out roughly 30,000 years ago, and a mysterious group known as the Denisovans, who lived in Asia and most likely vanished around the same time. Comparing genomes, scientists concluded that today’s humans outside Africa carry an average of 2.5% Neanderthal DNA, and that people from parts of Oceania also carry about 5% Denisovan DNA. Southeast Asians carry about 1% Denisovan DNA in addition to Neanderthal genes. It is unclear whether Denisovans and Neanderthals also interbred. A small number of half-Neanderthal, half-modern human hybrids walked the earth between 46,000 and 67,000 years ago. The value of the interbreeding shows up in the immune system. The Neanderthals and Denisovans lived in Europe and Asia for many thousands of years before modern humans showed up; they had developed ways to fight diseases there. When modern humans mated with them, this provided their offspring with helpful genetic immune material so useful that it remains in the genome today. The downside of archaic immune material is that it may be responsible for autoimmune diseases like diabetes, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Little is known about the Denisovans that were once scattered widely across Asia. Modern populations in Oceania, including aboriginal Australians, still carry those Denisovan genes.

The extent to which genetics accounts for differences in IQ among individuals increases as people get older. Studies comparing identical and fraternal twins show that about 40% of IQ differences among preschoolers stems from genetic differences but that heritability rises to 60% by adolescence and to 80% by late adulthood. With age, differences among individuals in developed intelligence come to mirror more closely genetic differences. The effects of environment on intelligence fade rather than grow with time. In hindsight, perhaps this should come as no surprise. Further, environments shared by siblings have little to do with IQ. Many people still mistakenly believe that social, psychological and economic differences among families create lasting and marked differences in IQ. Behavioural geneticists refer to such environmental effects as “shared” because they are common to siblings who grow up together. Research has shown that although shared environments do have a modest influence on IQ in childhood, their effects dissipate by adolescence. The IQs of adopted children lose all resemblance to those of their adoptive family members and become more like the IQs of the biological parents they have never known. [Presumably programmes such as “No Child Left Behind” help children to learn faster, but not more. But that hardly seems like sufficient justification for their continuance.]

On Living in Another Country

International Tax Collector

Go Everywhere

End Up Here

Renunciation is a voluntary act of relinquishing one’s citizenship or nationality. It is the opposite of naturalisation whereby a person voluntarily acquires a citizenship, and related to denaturalisation where the loss of citizenship is not voluntary, but forced by a state. Renunciation of citizenship is the only way to eliminate the lifetime tax obligation of countries which tax based on citizenship rather than residency. (Currently, the US is the only major country to do this.) In 1996, the US changed its immigration law to include a provision to “name and shame” renunciants. (Where does the shame come in?) The Department of the Treasury became obligated to publish in the Federal Register the names of those citizens who renounce citizenship. There were 226 in 2008, 731 in 2009, and 1,485 in 2010. (Notice a trend?) There is a common concern that individuals about to relinquish citizenship don’t become stateless; many countries require evidence (or promise) of another citizenship before they release that person from citizenship. Effective June 2008, US citizens renouncing their citizenship are subject under certain circumstances to an expatriation tax. This a mark-to-market regime, which generally means that all property of a covered expatriate is deemed sold for its fair market value on the day before the expatriation date. This usually results in a capital gain (on which tax must of course be paid).

Would-be US renunciants must also prove that they don’t intend to live in the US afterward. Furthermore, one cannot renounce inside US borders; the declaration must be made at a consul’s office abroad. In 1970, roughly 20,000 Americans became permanent residents of Canada. That number has dropped over the last decade to an average of just about 5,000. Today, it takes an average of 25 months to be accepted as a permanent Canadian resident, and this is only the first step in what is likely to be a 5-year process of becoming a citizen. Mexico’s citizenship programme is equally complicated. The country does offer a lenient programme for retirees, who may essentially stay as long as they want. But they are not able to work or to vote, and, more important, they must remain American citizens for at least 5 years. It takes at least 5 years to become a citizen of Pakistan unless one marries into a family; each applicant for residency is judged on a case-by-case basis. Uzbekistan imposes a 5-year wait, with an additional twist: the nation does not recognise dual citizenship so one must renounce his current citizenship first. Citizenship in St Kitts and Nevis can be purchased outright. Prices start at around $125,000, which includes a $25,000 application fee and a minimum purchase of $100,000 in bonds. Processing time, which includes checks for criminal records and HIV, can take up to 3 months. Similar passport-vending programmes in Belize and Grenada have been shut down since 2001 under pressure from the US State Department, which does not approve.

People hoping to spend some or all of their retirement to New Zealand will be able to apply for residency under a new type of visa. The "retirement" category is open to those aged 65 and over, and takes the form of either a parent retirement visa — for those with family in the country — or a temporary retirement visa for those who have no existing relationship with NZ. Previous to this, NZ didn’t accept migrants over the age of 56. The temporary retirement visa offers a 2-year permit for people who wish to spend some of their retirement in NZ, provided that they invest in the country. It requires at least NZ$750,000 in qualifying investments, as well as $500,000 (£230,000) for maintenance, and an annual income of at least $60,000 (£28,000) from pensions and other investments. (It is unclear whether this is per person or per family.) It can be renewed after 2 years, provided that settlers continue to meet the criteria. The parent visa grants permanent residency to applicants who have an equal number or more of their family inside NZ than anywhere else. These applicants are also required to meet financial criteria, as they must offer at least NZ $1 million (£465,000) in qualifying investments over 4 years, as well as $500,000 for maintenance and an income of at least $60,000 per annum. There are around 215,000 British expats living in NZ, and statistics from their Department of Labour show that the UK is the largest source country of migrants approved for permanent residency (17%). For more info, see NZ’s official website.

Avatar director James Cameron will arrive later this year to begin work on a sequel to be made with Weta Digital. His connection to NZ is strengthened by his recent $20 million purchase of 1,067 hectares in the Wairarapa where he and his family plan to reside “indefinitely” on what they plan to be a working farm. The family will be located just minutes down the road from famous Wairarapa filmmakers, Sir Peter Jackson and wife, Fran Walsh, who live just outside Masterton. While an established family home is on Cameron’s hillside property, it is understood he will build an eco-home on another site. However, a South Wairarapa District Council officer said no resource-consent applications “in any way, shape or form” have been lodged as yet.

On the Death of Ben Hana

Ben Near the Beginning

Ben in the Middle

Ben in 2008

Ben in the End

Ben Hana’s Temporary Courtenay Place Memorial

Practically every newspaper and blog in Wellington has written about Ben Hana, known locally as Blanket Man, after he died on 15 January. (I’m late.) Ben showed up on Courtenay Place while we were living in New Jersey. Though he lived on the street, unlike every other homeless person I’ve seen, he asked for nothing. Indeed, when people offered him money or food, he usually refused. I never stopped to speak to him, but he always made eye contact with me, smiled, and nodded — like we were old friends. I liked him. But it was only after his death that I learned anything about him.

Ben was mostly Maori. He’d been raised a Jehovah’s Witness in a strict household. His brother is a fisherman in the South Island; his sister lives in China. He was considered a deep thinker in his youth, but left home at 16 to hang around gangs. At 22, drunk and driving, he had an accident that killed his best friend. Around this time, he married and he and his wife eventually had 4 children plus one from her previous relationship; Ben worked in the forestry industry to support them. This “normal” period lasted little more than a decade — they separated in the 1990s; charges were laid against Ben, who ended up in jail. After that, Ben’s deterioration accelerated. He stopped wearing shoes, then clothing (no matter the weather) except for his blanket. Sometimes, through carelessness, he exposed himself; a judge finally issued one of the country’s most bizarre bail conditions: Ben had to wear underwear at all times. Local shopkeepers once chipped in to buy him a new blanket; police routinely checked his underwear.

Ben was not, as some regarded him, a happy-go-lucky vagabond cheerfully thumbing his nose at the establishment and living without a care on the streets. Rather, he was a broken man, mentally unwell, haunted by personal demons, chronically malnourished, and with a serious drug and alcohol problem that caused him to waste away.

So Blanket Man is dead. Now for the commemorative sculpture from Weta Workshop — I see the call for a sculpture has begun already — and the funeral attended by local dignitaries and those who used to feed him booze and junk food in Courtenay Place. They meant well, but didn’t do him any good. He wouldn’t let them.

Ben was 54 when he died of malnourishment and complications. He usually sat in the sun, but for the two days before he died, I saw that he was huddled in a heap on the cold footpath wrapped in his filthy blanket. He looked distinctly unwell. Did I stop to help? No. No one else did, either. He died of slow suicide right in front of us all. I don’t want to ever forget that. (No propranolol for me.)

If you die, how long will it take for someone to find you? 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 months? 5 years?

Eleven percent of Americans ages 12 years and older took antidepressants during the period from 2005-08, based on a survey of over 12,000 people. Possible reasons for the 400% increase over 1988 include the struggling economy (with attendant job losses and foreclosures), ad campaigns by pharmaceutical companies, and insurance policies that pay for prescriptions but not mental health counselling. Only a fraction of those taking antidepressants have seen a mental health professional in the past year. Nearly 1 in 4 US women ages 40 to 59 are taking antidepressants. Doctors who prescribe some popular antidepressants should monitor their patients closely for warning signs of suicide, especially when they first start the pills or change a dose.

On the morning of 21 April 1995, Worth Sullivan put his mouth to a microphone in a garage in Lexington, Kentucky, and in the strict sense of having been “shocked to death,” was electrocuted. He and his band, the Moviegoers, had stopped for a day to rehearse on their way from Chicago to a concert in Tennessee. Worth had just leaned forward to sing his opening lines when a surge of electricity arced through his body, magnetising the mike to his chest like a tiny but obstinate missile, searing the first string and fret into his palm, and stopping his heart. He fell backward and crashed, already dying. The rubber soles of his shoes were the only thing that kept him from being zapped into a more permanent fate than the one he did endure. He flatlined 5 times in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The worst news came later in ICU and had to do with his brain, which displayed 1% activity, vegetable status. The foregoing is an excerpt from Pulphead, written by Worth’s brother, John Jeriamiah Sullivan. The essay veers from tragedy to tragicomedy to outright farce and is well worth a read. In fact, I’ll probably buy the book just so I can read some more. Via Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish.

Belief / Relief

Reality

Faith

Repeated speciation and the divergence of life (evolution) can be inferred from shared sets of biochemical and morphological traits, or by shared DNA sequences. These homologous traits and sequences are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct evolutionary histories.

“Atheism is just another religion”, or “Atheism requires as much faith as religion does”. This isn’t true. Atheism is a religion in the same way that off is a television channel. In the same way that bald is a hairstyle. In the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Drink this strange brew in conjunction with other beverages which complement, or mask, the delicate flavour of Purple Death. Please note, the term “some” implies a certain flexibility.

Russian Jumper

(with some vodka)

American Purple

(with some Bourbon)

Purple Lady

(with some Gin)

Purple Randy

(with some Brandy, a rose and candles)

Purple Carribean

(with some white Rum and a parrot)

Or use for: punch base, ice cream topping, trifles, steak marinade or with fruit juice. [A quick google search turns up information that Purple Death was quite popular in the NZ armed forces during the 70s and 80s at airmen’s clubs, and such. It’s apparently a bit like a cheap port – fairly sweet, and very strong. Like very alcoholic cough syrup, according to one review. Another said it turns your tongue green. It also apparently makes a decent marinade for steaks, although one person claimed it turns the steaks a bit green too. Almost makes you want to try it, doesn’t it?]

It’s not often that one sees an amusing video about CPR. Vinnie Jones shows how “hard-and-fast hands-only” CPR to “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees can help save the life of someone who has had a cardiac arrest. This is a British Heart Foundation tv advertisement urging more people to carry out CPR in a medical emergency.

Researchers recruited 40 healthy student volunteers and anæsthetised each of them using one of four common drugs (dexmedetomidine, propofol, sevoflurane, or xenon) while recording a simple electrical brain response called the bispectral index, which is commonly used as a rough “depth of anæsthesia” measure. This was the first study to put volunteers under anæsthesia solely as part of an experiment. In this case, the experiment tested whether people had conscious experiences despite being unable to respond to outside stimuli – the medical definition of being unconscious. It turns out that despite being rated as unresponsive and, therefore, by the current medical definition, unconscious, participants reported conscious experiences in about 60% of the sessions. This does not mean that everyone was “awake” as we normally understand it, as the extent to which the experiences reflected the reality of what was going on around the person varied, but the volunteers were clearly having conscious experiences. This isn’t a good guide to how frequently this happens in actual surgery. Surgical operations typically use much higher levels of anæsthesia; research suggests that awareness during surgery happens in about 1 in 1,000 cases and is typically fleeting. This new study found tantalising evidence that different anæsthetics affect the ability to respond and have mental experiences at different depths of sedation, in line with the fact that they are known to have radically different neurochemical effects. Via Mind Hacks.

Biological Spots, Stripes, and Solids

Cadiz, Andalusia, Spain

Medessen, Saxony, Germany

Hitachinaka City, Japan

This was taken on the road from Medina Sidonia to Grazalema in Andalusia, close to El Bosque village. Possibly the field is covered in corn marigolds.

Yellow-striped fields of rapeseed, a member of the mustard/cabbage family. (Canola is a trademark for a hybrid variety of rape initially bred in Canada.) Rapeseed is the 3rd leading source of vegetable oil in the world, after soybean and palm oil.

Red kochi (summer cypress, broom cypress, burning bush, ragweed) at Hitachi Seaside Park. The hill of this fluffy-looking (but actually quite prickly) shrub, more often seen on brooms than on the ground in eastern Asia, creates a peculiar yet attractive view in autumn when the branches and stems turn bright red. Visitors are welcome to walk among the bushes and climb to the top of the hill to get a nice view across the park. Although most famous for its autumn foliage, the hill shows a different charm when the shrubs are still green.

“'Browsing’ is the opposite of 'search’. Search is precise, browsing is imprecise. When you search, you find what you were looking for; when you browse, you find what you were not looking for. Search corrects your knowledge, browsing corrects your ignorance. Search narrows, browsing enlarges. It does so by means of accidents, of unexpected adjacencies and improbable associations. On Amazon, by contrast, there are no accidents. Its adjacencies are expected and its associations are probable, because it is programmed for precedents. It takes you to where you have already been — to what you have already bought or thought of buying, and to similar things. It sells similarities. After all, serendipity is a poor business model. But serendipity is how the spirit is renewed; and a record store, like a bookstore, is nothing less than an institution of spiritual renewal.” — Leon Wieseltier Via the inimitable Andrew Sullivan.

Stairway at the Butchart Gardens, a group of floral display gardens in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, Canada, near Victoria on Vancouver Island. More than one million people visit annually.

It’s All There in Black and White

Ca c’est Paris

Who’s Unlucky Now?

Tracer Bullets

Opening Day at the Golden Gate

Dali Museum, St Petersburg, Florida

Arcade Passagway

This embodies what I like most about Paris.

In 1961, Hollywood audition were held for director Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror (1962), film adaptations of a trio of Edgar Allen Poe stories including “The Black Cat” (starring Vincent Price and Peter Lorre). Every cat seems to be as far away from its owner and the other cats as it can get. Lots more photos here.

In Europe, enemy tracer bullets weave an intricate pattern as they shoot towards the planes of the royal air force during a night attack on Hamburg, 23 December 1943. This picture was reportedly made from one of the raiding planes, according to information found on the back of the photo.

Golden Gate Bridge, opening day, 27 May 1937. The bridge’s first day was solely for pedestrians (some 200,000 showed up). Its second was for vehicles. Then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt had pressed a telegraph key in the White House declaring the bridge open to the entire world. In the first hours of business, 1,800 cars passed over the bridge. By the end of the day, 32,300 vehicles and 19,350 pedestrians had paid tolls and crossed. San Francisco and its neighbouring northern counties were linked at last. That night, the city celebrated the bridge with an enormous display of fireworks.

Located on a scenic waterfront site in downtown St Petersburg, the 68,000-square-foot structure doubles the size of the original 1982 Salvadore Dali Museum. Despite the complex processes required to construct the building, which stands more than 75 feet tall and is adorned by 1,062 unique triangular glass panels, the $29.8 million building project was completed on time and $700,000 under budget. The building protects its priceless art collection from hurricane-force winds and water. The fortress-like structure is designed to withstand the 165-mph wind loads of a Category 5, 200-year hurricane. The roof is 12-inch-thick solid concrete and the cast-in-place reinforced concrete walls are 18 inches thick. Located above the flood plain on the 3rd floor, the art is protected from a 30-foot-high hurricane storm surge. Storm doors shield the vault and galleries. Specially developed for this project, the triangulated glass panels are 1½ inches thick, insulated and laminated, and were tested to resist the 135 mph winds, driven rain, and missile impacts of a Category 3 hurricane.

An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians. I don’t know where this one is located.

Doublet Pool is a hot spring in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. It is 8 feet (2.4 metres) deep and its temperature is approximately 194.4°F (90.2°C). Its scalloped edge is made of geyserite. Geysers rarely occur in Doublet Pool (only 2 or 3 have been observed), the pool on the right pulses over the vents about every two hours. Sometimes, there will be vibrations, surface wave motion, and thumping; these are probably caused by collapsing gas and steam bubbles deep underground. Doublet is a good example of one of the dangers encountered if you leave the boardwalk. On close examination, what initially looks like sturdy ground around Doublet Pool is actually a thin overhang of sinter over extremely hot water.

In one recent study, researchers from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene placed simple green signs that read Burn Calories, Not Electricity next to elevators in 3 buildings: a 3-story health clinic, a 10-story affordable housing building, and an 8-story academic building. Then they watched to see if more people chose to take the stairs. Stair use increased immediately at all locations by amounts ranging from 9.2% to 34.7%. And it doesn’t seem that tenants and employees got tired of taking the stairs, either. The gains in physical activity continued to be observed 9 months after the signs were first placed. The NYC health department has now given out 26,000 signs to owners and managers of about 1,000 buildings. Via Andrew Sullivan.

Bats and Birds and Snakes — Oh, My!

Henry Horenstein has a very unique view of the animal kingdom, often characterised by shooting very close to the subject. At times, his photographs are even difficult to identify (but unique and often quite moving). Horenstein is currently a professor of photography at the Rhode Island School of Design; he has been a teacher for 38 years, beginning at Harvard in 1974. This is his lovely depiction of Pteropus mearnsi.

Italian photographer Pasquero has an eye for birds and wildlife. It shows.

I had thought this was a photograph of a swimming snake, but it may best be considered artwork instead. Adam Fuss (born London, England, 1961) grew up moving between rural Sussex in the South of England and Australia before settling to work in New York in 1982. He made his first photogram in 1986. He put photographic paper at the bottom of a tray holding a swimming snake, then used a flash to capture snake and ripples.

A spitting cobra is one of several species of cobra that have the ability to eject venom from their fangs when defending themselves against predators. The sprayed venom is harmless to intact skin. However, it can cause permanent blindness if introduced to the eye and left untreated. Despite their name, these snakes do not actually spit their venom. The venom sprays out in distinctive geometric patterns, using muscular contractions upon the venom glands. When cornered, some species can “spit” their venom as far as 2 metres (6.6 feet). Several viper species (notably the Mangshan Pitviper) may “fling” or even spit venom forward in a spray when threatened.

Toxoplasma gondii (T gondii or Toxo for short) is a parasite capable of extraordinary shenanigans. T gondii can turn a rat’s strong innate aversion to cats into an attraction, luring it into the jaws of its number one predator. Even more amazing is how it does this: the organism rewires circuits in parts of the brain that deal with such primal emotions as fear, anxiety, and sexual arousal. T gondii disconnects fear circuits in the brain, which might help to explain why infected rats lose their aversion to cat odour. Just as startling, the parasite simultaneously is able to hijack some of the circuitry related to sexual arousal in the male rat — probably by boosting dopamine levels in the reward-processing part of the brain. The parasite has two genes that allow it to crank up production of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the host brain. Dopamine is a critical signaling molecule involved in fear, pleasure, and attention. So when the animal catches a whiff of cat scent, the fear centre fails to fully light up, as it would in a normal rat, and instead the area governing sexual pleasure begins to glow. In humans, infected men like the smell of cat pee — or at least they rank its scent much more favourably than uninfected men do. But Toxo infection may be linked to schizophrenia and other disturbances associated with altered dopamine levels — for example, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and mood disorders. What’s more, many experts think T gondii may be far from the only microscopic puppeteer capable of pulling human strings. “My guess is that there are scads more examples of this going on in mammals, with parasites we’ve never even heard of,” says Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky. Familiar to most of us, of course, is the rabies virus. On the verge of killing a dog, bat, human, or other warm-blooded host, it stirs the animal into a rage while simultaneously migrating from the nervous system to the creature’s saliva, ensuring that when the host bites, the virus will live on in a new carrier. The flu virus boosts our desire to socialise. Why? Presumably because it spreads through close physical contact, often before symptoms emerge — meaning that it must find a new host quickly. Many people at the end stages of AIDS and syphilis express an intense craving for sex. So, too, do individuals at the beginning of a herpes outbreak.

As time becomes worth more money, time is seen as scarcer. Scarcity and value are perceived as conjoined twins; when a resource — from diamonds to drinking water — is scarce, it is more valuable, and vice versa. So, when our time becomes more valuable, we feel like we have less of it. Indeed, surveys from around the world have shown that people with higher incomes report feeling more pressed for time. True, more affluent people often work longer hours, leaving them with objectively less free time. But simply perceiving oneself as affluent also seems sufficient to generate feelings of time pressure. If feelings of time scarcity stem in part from the sense that time is incredibly valuable, then ironically, one of the best things we can do to reduce this sense of pressure may be to give our time away. Indeed, new research suggests that giving time away to help others can actually alleviate feelings of time pressure. Over the past 50 years, feelings of time pressure have risen dramatically in North America, despite the fact that weekly hours of work have stayed fairly level and weekly hours of leisure have climbed. This apparent paradox may be explained, in no small part, by the fact that incomes have increased substantially during the same period. Via Andrew Sullivan.

Giant Crustaceans

Texas Tiger Prawn

New Zealand Amphipod

Loitering Ammonites

The Asian tiger prawn, a foot-long crustacean with a voracious appetite and a proclivity for disease, has invaded the northern Gulf of Mexico, threatening prized native species (from crabs and oysters to smaller brown and white shrimp). Scientists fear a tiger prawn takeover could turn a healthy, diverse marine habitat into one dominated by a single invasive species. Tiger prawns from the western Pacific have been spreading along the Gulf Coast since 2006, but their numbers have recently increased sharply. Some speculate the Gulf invasion began with an accidental release of farmed prawns in South Carolina in 1988. Another theory: The prawns may have escaped from flooded industrial shrimp ponds in the Caribbean Sea during recent hurricanes. The threat underscores concerns about large-scale fish farming, also known as aquaculture, in the Gulf. Tiger prawns weigh more than 8 ounces and have distinctive black and white tail stripes. They eat the same types of food as native shrimp species, but also prey on their smaller cousins, as well as crabs and young oysters. What complicates things is that they’re tasty, fetching a higher market price than native brown shrimp on the New York market this month.

Using submerged cameras and a large trap designed by Aberdeen University’s Oceanlab, researchers were able to explore up to depths of 6 miles. They were hoping to find specimens of deep-sea snailfish, which have been photographed before but have not been seen since the 1950s. Expedition leader Alan Jamieson said: “The moment the traps came on deck, we were elated at the sight of the snailfish as we have been after these fish for years. However, seconds later I stopped and thought, 'What on earth is that?’ whilst catching a glimpse of an amphipod far bigger than I ever thought possible. It’s a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach.” Seven specimens were caught in the trap and up to 9 were photographed gathering around the camera system. (To me, the creepy thing about this creature is its spiky tail.)

Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and 25 miles (40 kilometres) east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border. It is nicknamed “The Pearl of Dorset.” The town is noted for the fossils found in the cliffs and beaches, which are part of the Heritage Coast — known commercially as the Jurassic Coast — a World Heritage Site. Lyme is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. In the 13th century it developed into one of the major British ports. A Royal Charter was granted by King Edward I in 1284, with the addition of 'Regis’ to the town’s name. This charter was confirmed by Elizabeth I in 1591. A museum houses a large collection of local memorabilia, historical items and exhibits explaining the local geological and palaeontological treasures. Set into the pavement outside the museum is an ornate example of a Coade stone (it is artificial) into which is worked designs that look like ammonites, reflecting the palaeontology for which the town is famous. The name ammonite, from which the scientific term is derived, was inspired by the spiral shape of its fossilised shell, which somewhat resembles a tightly coiled ram’s horn. Pliny the Elder (d. 79 AD near Pompeii) called fossils of these animals ammonis cornua (“horns of Ammon”) because the Egyptian god Ammon (Amun) was typically depicted wearing a ram’s horns. They are an extinct group of marine invertebrate animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda (okay, so they aren’t crustaceans). These molluscs are more closely related to octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.

More than 400 people (both kids and adults) – and one fish – participated in the 29 January 2012 “Jig It” Ice Fishing Extravaganza held at the Escanaba Yacht Harbor in Escanaba, Michigan. The event was organised and sponsored by Big Brother Big Sisters of the Bay Area. Jason Pepin, of Escanaba, was the only fisherman to catch a fish during the competition. The small perch, caught at 11:55am, weighed only 4.5 ounces but netted Pepin the first place prize: US$3,000 cash. Some fishermen saw fish in their ice holes and fish finders were detecting swimmers below but they just weren’t biting.

What do truffles taste like? Like a mushroom, but no amount of description will equal trying one. Truffle oil on a piece of baguette should tell you if it’s worth pursuing further. The taste is usually described as “earthy” or “meaty”, though white truffles have a subtler, slightly floral taste. Truffles are extremely expensive, and eating them in tiny quantities is usually pointless because in small quantities they merely add mushroominess to a dish, but you can do that a lot cheaper from actual mushrooms. Preserved truffles aren’t worth the trouble. Fresh ones are insanely expensive (on the order of $50 to $150 an ounce and up) — nice, but consuming $100+ worth of them at a single meal seems rather extravagant. You can get a pretty good idea of the taste from truffle oil sprinkled on eggs or potatoes. Real truffles are rather nicer than that, but say twice as nice for 50 times as much. Truffles remind some people of the smell of raw gasoline from the pump (an aroma which some people apparently find pleasant for some reason). If you like the smell of petrol, perhaps you’ll enjoy truffles. Truffles send out olfactory alerts to tell woodland animals where to dig, so they’ll excavate them and distribute the spores, thus helping the truffles to reproduce. Truffle hunters take advantage of those olfactory signals, using pigs or (preferably) dogs to locate the most prized. In eating terms it is the meaty, savory ripe taste of mushrooms and aged cheeses, balsamic vinegar and anchovies. Truffles are the very essence of umami: earthy, rich, dark and mysterious. (And expensive.)

The Orient Express

Rainforest Ahead

Passenger Lounge

Nightime Stateroom

The End Car

Daytime Stateroom

Room Service

The Orient Express is the name of a long-distance passenger train service originally operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. It ran from 1883 to 2009 and is not to be confused with the Venice-Simplon Orient Express train service, which continues to run. Although the original Orient Express was simply a normal international railway service, its name became synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel. On 14 December 2009, the Orient Express ceased to operate and the route disappeared from European railway timetables, reportedly a “victim of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines”. The Venice-Simplon Orient Express train, a private venture using original carriages from the 1920s and 30s, continues to run from London to Venice and to other destinations in Europe, including the original route from Paris to Istanbul. The company also offers a similarly-themed train line in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Laos, called the Eastern & Oriental Express. It transports passengers through beautiful rainforests, around mountains, and into quaint villages. Ticket price start at US$2,300 dollars per person.

The intricacies of a leaf’s veining are recreated by wrapping, stitching, and knotting together strands of human hair. A leaf is drawn on a water-soluable backing, then “embroidered” using human hair as thread. When two lines cross, the second hair is knotted around the first. When the backing is later dissolved, the hair leaf retains its shape.

Bird’s Eye Views

Bath, Somerset

The Spanish Island of Menorca

Las Vegas, Nevada

Aerial photographer Jason Hawkes, from Oxfordshire, has captured different types of living arrangements people have around the world. He travelled above 4 continents by helicopter in a 12-year project to record how housing developments have produced abstract patterns on the landscape.

A circular row of grand houses in St James’s Park look on a giant tree.

Villas line up, each with a glistening swimming pool, in Cala en Porter.

The sprawling suburb of one of the fastest-growing cities in the US.

A Loading Screen with an Idea…

Jurgen Sierens made a goal for the opposition during the Anderlecht versus Roeselare game. He stopped the ball in a save area, but apparently bumped it with his knee when he arose from a kneel and it rolled into the net. He will likely never be allowed to live that down.

Bruiach Woods and the old mill workings.Great grove with hints of Spanish moss.Southern live oaks.

Want a family portrait that’s a little different? (“Turn those frowns upside down” wasn’t working at first for the Combs family when they went for their family photo. But the photographer was resourceful.)

The Element of Surprise is a clever tee-shirt design from Waiting4Codot.

Veiled Women

Dama Velata

Modesty (Sort of)

Veiled Vestal Virgin

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t seen any of these sculptures in person. I find it extraordinary that it’s possible to chip away at solid rock and end up with the illusion of a transparent veil. Few artists display that skill.

Bust of a Veiled Woman (Puritas) Marble, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice, by Antonio Corradini (6 September 1668 – 29 June 1752), a Venetian Rococo sculptor. Though his desire to display his technical skill at times outstripped his inspiration, his virtuosity in marble remains remarkable.

In 1750, Corradini completed Veiled Truth (also called Modesty or Chastity) a tomb monument dedicated to Cecilia Gaetani dell’Aquila d’Aragona, mother of the main patron of the Sansevero Chapel in central Naples, who had died at the early age of 23. While being one of the most bizarre works in the history of sculpture, it is inspired technically. (With great virtuosity the sculptor manages to make the marble seem transparent.) The conceit of modesty shielded by the flimsiest of veils creates a piece that, while perhaps being overdone for a chapel funerary monument, does compel remembrance.

The statue is titled A veiled Vestal Virgin by Raffaelle Monti (1818-1881). It was commissioned by the 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1846 and finished the following year. From the time of its arrival from Milan, it was kept at Chiswick House until it moved to Compton Place in 1892. In 1901, it arrived at the Compton Place Gallery. Finally in 1999, it was relocated back to the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth House whence it had originated. The statue was featured in the recent Jane Austin film, Pride and Prejudice.

The Vestal Virgins were 6 priestesses in Ancient Rome who represented the daughters of the royal house; they tended the state cult of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. Girls aged 6-10 were chosen from wealthy patrician families to become one of the Vestals. To be chosen was a great honour. When a Vestal died (or retired), the high priest would choose a replacement who had to leave her home and live in the temple (but since the temple apartments were luxurious and even had hot running water, I assume that was perceived as a benefit overall). The young girl would take a vow of celibacy — if she broke this vow, she would be punished by death, buried alive in a chamber with just enough food for a few days and left to starve. By all accounts, few women broke this vow (a notable exception being Rhea Silvia, the Vestal Virgin who gave birth to Romulus and Remus). In their 1,000 year history, only 18 cases were recorded. The main duty of the women was to sustain the flame which burned in the Temple of Vesta. If the flame went out, the virgin was punished by whipping and death. They served Vesta in this way for 30 years — the first 10 years as apprentices, the 2nd 10 in service to the fire, the final 10 as teachers. Once their term was completed, they were free to marry and live a normal life with no interference [though by then most were probably too old to have children].

The Risks of Using Google Maps: This is the work of Aram Bartholl: “The marker and information speech bubble next to it cast a shadow on the digital map as if they were physical objects. When the map is switched to satellite mode it seems that they become part of the city. On the other hand it is just a simple 20px graphic icon which stays always at the same size on the computer screen. So where is the “centre” of a city? The marker is set up at the exact spot where Google Maps assumes it to be. Transferred to physical space, the map marker highlights the relation of the digital information space to everyday life. Public knowledge of spaces in a city are increasingly influenced by geolocation services.

896,475 people die each year from not forwarding chain emails and Facebook statuses. Also, Pluto is no longer a planet due to copyright claims from the Disney Corporation (just so you know).

Pictures Paired by Size and Tranquility

A few minutes earlier, the same photographer took this picture. But I like the one above slightly better. Photographed by Evan Leeson (Ecstaticist) in Victoria, British Columbia, 2009. (He uses a flood filter, which I don’t care for, so I removed it, but click the link just following to see his version.) photo source: BigHugeLabs from Ecstaticist

What has bee-fallen him? Wearing a costume seems to take over virtually all an animal’s attention until he or she becomes accustomed to it. He’ll bee back, though.photo source: BeeFail from CatsInCostumes

I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea.